As we approach the next UN Food Systems Summit—with the 2030 deadline just three years away—attention is turning to the actions countries and civil society can take to accelerate progress towards global development goals.
An important insight—and a genuine paradigm shift—emerged during the conference “The Role of Local Food Systems in Ensuring Food Security: Urban Experiences and Local Territorial Development Models,” co-organized by CIHEAM Bari, during the World Farmers Markets Coalition Fourth General Assembly, held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 7–8 October 2026.
The General Assembly is supported through “MAMI-Farmers Markets II – Strengthening the Capacities of Agricultural Markets in Africa and the Mediterranean”, a project implemented by CIHEAM Bari in partnership with the WFMC, funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Through the project, CIHEAM Bari supports the development of local food systems and the valorisation of small-scale, proximity agriculture—objectives that are also at the heart of the work of the Fondazione Campagna Amica and the World Farmers Markets Coalition, which promote the creation and development of farmers’ markets around the world.
It is from this perspective that an important message emerged from the conference: “Global challenges must be addressed starting from local territories and communities.” This perspective also emerges from analyses conducted in Africa, under projects funded by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and coordinated by CIHEAM Bari in support of the UN Food Coalition.
The challenge of global food security calls for a paradigm shift: the co-creation and interconnection of resilient, equitable and sustainable local food systems. Today, 330 cities are implementing local food policies through different mechanisms, including farmers’ markets, food districts, short food supply chains and social hubs. But an important question remains: do these tools generate a combined positive impact—economic, environmental, social and cultural—on the territories where they operate?
Looking at local food systems through the relationship between rural and urban areas means seeing them not simply as a set of activities, but as shared actions that connect local production, short supply chains and resilience, while addressing food poverty, the right to food, the environment, climate and human health.
In this context, local food systems can become spaces for innovation, co-design and participatory governance—creating the conditions to transform food systems themselves.
As Damiano Petruzzella from CIHEAM Bari, emphasizes, however, local food systems must generate a positive impact on their territories, enhancing social, economic, cultural and environmental value across the different stages of production, processing, distribution and consumption.
Through MAMI Farmers Market II, CIHEAM Bari is working to draw on both Italian and African experiences and support innovative models for sustainable local food systems, strengthening the role of farmers’ markets and small-scale agriculture in food system transformation.
Because global food security also depends—and increasingly so—on the ability of territories to govern their own food systems. Investing in local food systems means recognizing that achieving the SDGs also depends on the ability of territories to build sustainable, inclusive and participatory development. Because a more equitable and resilient world is, first and foremost, a world made of places.
